The Iron Sleet – Welcome!

Now the storm begins to lower, (Haste, the loom of Hell prepares!) Iron-sleet of arrowy shower Hurtles in the darkened air.

Glittering lances are the loom, Where the dusky warp we strain, Weaving many a soldier’s doom, Orkney’s woe and Randver’s bane.

See the grisly texture grow, (‘Tis of human entrails made!) And the weights that play below, Each a gasping warrior’s head.

Shafts for shuttles, dipped in gore, Shoot the trembling cords along. Sword, that once a monarch bore, Keep the tissue close and strong.

– Scrivener Thomas Gray, 18th Century Terra

Far north, in the land of a thousand lakes, three young boys grew up in the grim darkness of the eighties and nineties. Each in turn encountered a White Dwarf and fell in love with the gothic horrors of the 41st Millennium: The Noble Astartes, the Imperial Guard and the Realms of Chaos. The boys would grow into scholars in the Universes illustrated by the genius unleashed in the vapors of the sixties Nottingham and London and sculpted into increasingly incredible miniatures.

Two decades later, each has grown a formidable creative force, a passionate storyteller, sculptor, painter, artist and designer in equal manner. Hellbent on pushing the boundaries and depths of Warhammer 40000 into uncharted territories and new vivid heights. Amazingly, not only has the hobby brought the three of them together, it has also built a deep friendship with their childhood liberator, John Blanche, and these days inspiration goes both ways.

Kari is the undisputed master of the Grim and the Grotesque. A humble genius, who slowly crafts the most stunning imagery far from the crowds of men. Creating characters in “The Name of the Rose”, if you catch the stylistic similarities. His Rogues Malus group is Inquisitorial modeling legend, as is the Spiky Rats blog he co-founded with our second inductee.

Mikko is inked dynamite, a gym-rat driven to create newness and recently liberated with his extraordinary Squat army. Part artist, part composer, part seeker of truth, he is using the hobby as a creative platform in figuring out what to do when he “grows up”. Mikko has produced some of the most original models to the increasingly populated Halls of Inquisitor 28mm Fame.

Last, but not least, Migs is a wizard who applies the same intense rigor to everything he does, every work-out, every paint session and every dinner. Everything is design. Always searching for new techniques and doctrines, only to brake all the rules once he learns them. Perhaps best known for his moon-lit Alpha Legionnaires, Migs has recently been dancing with the Vlka Fenryka.

The three Finlanders created the Iron Sleet to reach a wider audition and to generate more disruption, inspiration and discussion within the inter webs and Bugman’s. They all single out Massive Voodoo, and Roman Lappet in particular for inspiring them to go create something big like that, but about the Grim Darkness of the Far Future, the entire spread of the hobby, rather than painting and sculpting only.

To enable those goals, the trio is signing up for relentless development of a Blog platform that makes interaction, discussion, sharing and joining easy and rewarding. They plan on featuring many incredible visiting artists, illustrators and composers too.

This is quite exciting news, three of my favorite modelers, and two of the best 40k blogs on the internet combining is certain to be a great thing! It is a bit sad to see the other blogs go, as each held a bit of the personal essence of each of you, but this allows for something new, so it is worth celebrating.

I am not sure how excited I am with the choice of WordPress, as currently I feel the blog is a bit hard to navigate, although it is probably a large part due to just not being familiar with it. The site has a very streamlined and clean look, which is nice, however. Possibly adding page-breaks to each post would make it easier for new readers to quickly glance through the most recent posts, to get a sense of their contents? Without them, one has to scroll though each entire post to see previous ones, and might somewhat bury earlier work. Just a though; I really look forward to what is to come!

Thanks for the great feedback! Rest assured – you should be excited about word press, it is far superior to Blogger and it’s just up to Kari, Mikko and myself to keep working on it to make the best possible experience for the readers. We are also very confident this new thing is far more than the sum of its old parts, and we are already seeing that in the stats and traffic for one.